Dresser Industries

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Dresser Industries was a multinational corporation headquartered in Dallas, Texas, United States, which provided a wide range of technology, products, and services used for developing energy and natural resources. In 1998, Dresser merged with its main rival Halliburton,[1] Halliburton sold many of former Dresser non "oil patch" divisions, retaining the M W Kellogg Engineering and Construction Company and the Dresser oil-patch products and services that complemented Halliburton's energy and natural resource businesses. In 2001 Halliburton sold five separate, but somewhat related former Dresser non "oil patch" divisions, to an investment banking firm. Those five operations later took the name "Dresser Inc." In October 2010, Dresser Inc., was acquired by General Electric.[2] It is headquartered in Addison, Texas.[3]

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Solomon Robert Dresser invented a "packer", using rubber for a tight fit, and after taking out a patent on May 11, 1880, he began advertising and selling his product, the Dresser Cap Packer, from Bradford, Pennsylvania, in the heart of the oilfields. Dresser's packer was one of many available on the market, and it was another invention that saw a substantial expansion of the company. A flexible coupling, the Dresser Joint, that he built in 1885 to join pipes together in such a way that they would not leak natural gas. This coupling also used rubber for a tight fit, and it was so successful that it permitted for the first time the long-range transmission of natural gas from the gas fields where it was extracted to the cities which were the main gas consumers.[4]

As the natural gas industry prospered and expanded after 1900, Dresser's company grew as pipelines were built over great distances. By 1927 the company's annual sales had reached US$3.7 million and it was employing 400 workers.[4]

Following Dresser's death, his descendants decided to sell it, and in 1928 the Wall Street investment-banking firm of W. A. Harriman and Company, Inc., converted the firm into a public company by issuing 300,000 shares of stock.[5]

H. Neil Mallon was selected as president and chief executive officer; he held that position until his retirement in 1962. Under Mallon, Dresser began a program of acquisitions designed to help it survive the threat posed to its core business by the introduction of welding for joining pipes together. Starting in 1930 Dresser began acquiring companies that manufactured valves, heaters, pumps, engines and compressors and the company diversified into such products as oil derricks, blowers, drill bits, refractories, and drilling mud.[4]

In 1950, the company headquarters moved to Dallas to be near the center of the nation's major oil and gas fields. It continued to purchase well-known companies involved in manufacturing such things as overhead cranes, gasoline-dispensing pumps, and heavy equipment for mining and construction. During the 1980s, as the oil industry began to decline, Dresser's chairman, John Murphy, began to streamline the organization of the company, eliminating its insurance, mining, and construction-equipment divisions.[4][6]

In 1968, the Wayne Oil Tank and Pump Company, established in 1891,[7] merges with Dresser,[8] becoming the Dresser-Wayne Company.[9] Dresser Industries brought together Lane-Wells and the Pan Geo Atlas Corporation (PGAC) to form Dresser Atlas. PGAC’s expertise in openhole logging and its international operations made it an ideal merger partner to form an integrated wireline services company. Since its inception, Lane-Wells had generated most of its income from perforating services, but log interpretation had narrowed down producing zones, resulting in fewer perforations and less revenue. Greatly expanded wireline logging capabilities helped the combined company continue to grow.

On January 1, 1987 Dresser Industries and Ingersoll-Rand merged their common businesses to form Dresser-Rand Group with headquarters in Corning, New York. The newly formed company had 10 manufacturing and testing facilities, 70 sales offices, 30 service centers and more than 7,300 employees. The partnership started as a 50-50 relationship, but later Dresser took a 51% share of the assets while Ingersoll-Rand had 49%.[12]

Komatsu Limited and Dresser Industries established Komatsu Dresser to make mining tractors, construction equipment and related equipment.[13] This 50-50 ownership lasted from September 1988 to August 1994, when Komatsu bought out Dresser's share.[13]

By 1993, it generated sales of more than US$4 billion, and employed 31,800 people in fifty countries. The company had three major divisions: Oil Field Products and Services, Industrial Operations, and Energy Processing and Conversion Equipment. It spun off some of its manufacturing divisions, but crucially agreed to retain asbestos claims filed before the spinoff.[4]

In 1994, the company expanded through acquisitions of Wheatley TXT (a manufacturer of pumps, valves, and metering equipment) and the Baroid Corporation (an oil-services firm in Houston that had been a direct competitor). To comply with federal antitrust regulations, Dresser sold off its interest in M-I Drilling Fluids Company and Western Atlas International. Upon completion of the Baroid merger, Dresser became the third-largest oil-services company in the world.[4]

In 1998, Dresser merged with its main rival Halliburton and became known as Halliburton Company.[1]Dick Cheney negotiated the US$7.7 billion deal, reportedly having done so during a weekend of quail-hunting. In 2001, Halliburton was forced to settle the asbestos lawsuits that it acquired including the landmark case Bell v. Dresser Industries [14] as a result of purchasing Dresser, causing the company's stock price to fall by eighty percent in just over a year.[15]

In April 2001, the Dresser division (excluding the former Kellogg division) entered an agreement to separate itself once again from Halliburton by management purchasing its equity, the new company to be called Dresser, Inc. Dresser, Inc. was a leading global multi-national owned by First Reserve Corporation (U.S. based investment firm) and company management.

In February 2011, General Electric Co. agreed to buy oil-field equipment maker Dresser Inc. for $3 billion, expanding its biggest industrial unit. GE acquired Dresser from funds managed by Riverstone Holdings LLC and First Reserve Corporation. The move significantly expanded GE's offerings for energy and industrial customers worldwide and is the latest in a series of acquisitions over the last 10 years that have transformed GE's global energy portfolio.

The Dresser brand operates in more than 60 countries with four principal business segments: Measurement and Distribution Systems, Flow Technologies, Infrastructure Solutions, and Power and Compression Systems. It retains trade names of Masoneilan, Consolidated, Becker, Mooney, ROOTS, and Wayne fuel pumps.